Whew! I finally put together the remains of my March zero-based budget, and it ain't pretty. I was dreading looking at the numbers in black and white, because I knew I hadn't done well in the 'Fun' and in the 'Miscellaneous' categories.
As you can see, I overdid my 'Fun' budget by $21.48 and spent a whopping $91.26 more than I had allocated in my miscellaneous category. I covered for this by taking away the savings ($60) I usually send to my account that covers my monthly trash pickup and water bill.
Although I did overrun my budget slightly, I was happy to see that I spent only 76% of my total income---the rest went to savings! Also, my spreadsheet shows that I ended up with $70.92, but in reality there was only $5.25 left in my checking account at the end of last month (I sent this to my savings account). Somewhere along the line, I 'lost' about $65, so I'll try to be better about accounting for every penny this month.
All in all, March was an expensive month (I overspent on a friend's birthday celebration) but I'm relieved to see that the damage is not as bad as I anticipated. Now, on to April!!
4 comments:
I really like the way you setup your budget spreadsheet. I am always looking for new ways to track mine, I am going to try out the way you do yours and see if it works for me.
You did a great job at pretty much staying on budget, 100.00 isnt too bad, at least in my book!!
Love how you broke it all down...I'm definitely thinking of doing the same thing...what was the most difficult part? The tracking? (I think that would be the most difficult part for me.)
This happens to us also. On paper we show that we should have one thing but the reality of what's actually in the bank is not the same as what is on the paper.
We have not dedicated ourselves to using a spreadsheet yet. We need to though.
I think the most difficult part about zero-based budgets is trying to see into the future to predict how much I'll need for various things, like food and utilities. I can estimate those, but what about unplanned expenses that don't fall under the category of emergency (for which I have an emergency fund?) Then comes the tracking, which involves guilt sometimes, meaning that I'm loathe to even write something down if I regret the purchase or expenditure! It's all worth it in the end, though when I can see it all on paper (or, in this case, on the internet!) and I realize I didn't do as badly as I felt I did! I have a vanilla version of my zero-based budget, if anyone wants it just shoot me an email at finally_frugal at blogspot dot com!
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